I Did Not Procrastinate on Writing this Post

Photo by Pedro Forester Da Silva on Unsplash

I did not procrastinate on writing this post.

I just waited until it was the right time to write it. And here we are!

I’ve recently been busier than usual. I’m taking multiple online courses for my pastoral ordination studies, which require discussion boards and papers. I’m doing ministry at my church. I’m writing a book. I’m writing this blog. I’m learning to take better care of my home than I have in the past. Among other things.

There are so many opportunities for me to push aside things that need to be done until it’s almost too late. My childhood was a repeating story of this behavior. I disliked doing hard things that made me super tired or sweaty or felt like a waste of time (unless they were fun or social things).

Like many kids my age, I would wait until the last minute and use a surge of adrenaline, desperation, and possibly even a mixture of sugar and caffeine to accomplish homework or important projects. This is also how I got my Eagle rank in the Boy Scouts by the skin of my teeth.

I did the same thing in college. And I’ve done it in my ministerial studies.

Until recently.

I decided to run an experiment/challenge on myself, as I often do these days for the fun of it. Just to see how the experience makes me feel or changes my thought processes.

What if I decided to do most of my assignments a minimum of one day early? Two or three days early would be ideal. Basically, what if I did them whenever I had free time instead of spending that time doing something inconsequential or less important?

What if I put off the comfortable “nothing” in favor of doing the uncomfortable “something,” so I could do “something” in an unrushed manner that would allow me to do the comfortable “nothing” later and enjoy it more because I don’t have a deadline looming?

After only a few weeks of trying this, I’ve noticed something curious that I wish I could go back and tell my 16-year-old self about:

Getting “something” done early so I can enjoy a less important “nothing” afterwards is surprisingly refreshing! And it also feels a bit weird, because I now get to do “nothing” without thinking about the fact that “something else” really needs to get done.

When I was in high school, I had to read The Scarlet Letter in an English class. An assignment everyone dreaded came with that lesson series, one the teacher did in her class every year. Each student had to come up with a fault they struggled with, make a red letter that signified that thing, wear that letter on their chest the whole day at school to get the “scarlet letter” experience of being stared at, and do a presentation in class on why we chose that word and letter.

The catch: the teacher said no one could use P for “Procrastination,” because apparently everyone would do that if she let them. I totally would’ve. So I dug a little deeper and chose “Preoccupied,” because as a kid, I was often stuck in my head, imagining all kinds of things and not necessarily caring all the time about the world around me.

I’ve worn both “Procrastination” and “Preoccupied” most of my life. Only in the last few years have I realized how important it now is for me to get out of my head and do real, necessary things that I don’t want to do—usually because they’re “work,” not “play”.

This experiment has been an opportunity for me to put off those “letters” and start living as someone who doesn’t put off doing hard and uncomfortable things that will benefit me in the long run. Because I just know that future me will always thank present me for accomplishing things when I can instead of “whenever I feel like it.”

(Are we dizzy yet from the sheer number of quotation marks I’ve used in this post?)

And you know what? Doing things when they need to be done or when I have free time actually makes me feel so much better about myself than procrastination does.

Win-win.